just like Moby Dick, but shorter and less whale-oriented.

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Death Of A Slushie

A slushie in a much better state than the one I encountered. Also, it has two flavors. I don’t know what they are, but I cannot think of a blue and orange flavor that would go well together. It was probably not a great slushie.

It was there on the sidewalk. At first glance, I thought nothing of it. My dog and I kept walking to her customary pooping area. Then it registered.

It was an upside down cup, its resting place in the very center of the walking surface. The fact that it was a cup did not catch me off. In fact, at any given time of any given day, dozens of cups can be found lying about my apartment complex. This is due to the fact that a majority of the people living near me are disgusting. Not an average level of disgusting, but the level of disgusting that would probably get them on some sort of TLC reality program. They have no idea where trash does and does not belong. I have thought about hanging signs throughout the area that read “Trash in dumpster good, trash in piles throughout my stair well bad. Also, it does not make it any better if you hide it behind my bicycle.” They would probably just rip them down and leave them in my stairwell, though.

No, the sad thing was the stream of formerly deliciously frozen slushie now slowly melting and streaming down the hill. It was a miniature river of artificial orange flavoring and tiny chunks of ice crystals desperately clinging for life against the warm pavement of the sidewalk. This poor slushie had been abandoned by its owner and was now suffering the inevitable slushie fate. It was one of the gloomiest drink related sights a person can have.

I glanced around looking for the culprit. Maybe I would see a child crying, his sugar rush now just a mess in the way as I try to walk. Odds are, though, it was not a child. A child would lovingly care for his slush, savoring ever last bit of the fake fruit essence. He would hold it close until the moment he finally slurped the last remaining bit of it up. No, this was someone else with something much more heinous in mind.

This individual wanted the slushie to suffer.

I looked closely. Maybe there was still hope. If I tried, maybe I could scoop up the remainder of the treat and rush it into the safety of my freezer. I would have to move the bag of frozen chicken and the weird cubes of crushed garlic my wife seems to buy on a weekly basis, but I could find room. I glanced down to my dog who was giving me that look.

“Nathan,” she seemed to say. “It’s over. There will be other slushies to save. Just let this one go peacefully into the great slushie beyond.”

Who would throw away a perfectly good slushie? There is no reason to waste a delicious beverage like this. Even if that drink gave you a brain freeze, that is all on you. You need to learn how to pace yourself when drinking something that is made up of ice crystals and artificial flavors. There is no need to take it out on the drink.

Someday, this person will order another slushie and when they do, I hope they spill it all over themselves. I hope the slushie ruins their t-shirt just like they ruined this slushie today. They will sit in their car desperately trying to get the stain out of their shirt, but it is no use. The vengeance of the slushie is swift and very sticky.

Being the good citizen I am, I picked the cup up and placed it in the dumpster. The last thing the slushie would want is for the world to see its cup exposed like that. Plus, it’s not like anyone else would pick it up. They would probably just hide it behind my bike when I was not looking.

What a bunch of slobs…

Fun fact: This post contained the word “slushie” 12 times! Now I can’t look at the word without wanting to pluck my eyes out and throw them across the room! Isn’t repetition fun?

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12 thoughts on “Death Of A Slushie”

Oh what is wrong with people? Yesterday, I was driving home and there was a very large, brand new car right on my tail (shouldn’t stereotype, but in our area, it suggests drug dealer or professional football player – though the pink T-shirt swung me towards the latter), and as we pulled up at a roundabout, he lobbed a plastic bottle out of his window, onto the verge!! Gggrrrr!

Very good question – I’m not sure they all do – I don’t really hang out with footballers (or incidentally at all) but pink is very in at the moment (over here). I suppose I’m being unfair by stereotyping drug dealers – maybe some wear pink – and in retrospect it could have been a drug dealer in a cunning disguise…though probably not that cunning…the police probably stop footballers more often than drug dealers!

Actually, I found this a bit touching at times.. I can remember when our children were thirty-some years younger, a slushie was one of their favorite treats. They would savor it the way I taught them: take a mouthful (not stuffing your cheeks, which approaches a bellyful) and slowly let it melt, treating all your taste buds to whatever imitation flavors they found so intoxicating, and wait until you couldn’t wait any longer.before they slowly let the watery syrup slide down their throat.

“This poor slushie had been abandoned by its owner and was now suffering the inevitable slushie fate.” A sad sight to see, and I had seen it too often. Even twice was too often.
It was one of the longest measurements of time in a young child’s life: from the moment the cup clips out of their hand or falls out of their stroller until the split second the child realizes it’s truly gone. Then the sound of the disappointment.
“Maybe I would see a child crying, his sugar rush now just a mess in the way as I try to walk …. A child would lovingly care for his slush, savoring ever last bit of the fake fruit essence. He would hold it close until the moment he finally slurped the last remaining bit of it up.”
And when that divine moment was slowly flowing down the sidewalk, gravity taking it to its early demise, I felt so helpless.
If we went back to the vendor, the child would still be sobbing, even with a full cup back within their loving grasp.
Sure, they were getting another, but without the excitement and surprise that came with the first one: the one they had not protected closely enough, or the one that a bit of acceptable carelessness or not fully developed fine-motor skills had taken from them, or a minor pothole had stolen from them.
The second slushie was anticlimactic, not because the first one was gone, but because the first one was the real treasure.
The second one would just be a “make-up” slushie which could never bring the joy of the first treasure.

I’m far past old enough to realize what people can be like and even more cynical about how callously they can be that way, and I’ll usually figure it was just a slob who chose to decorate the world in the tiniest way in his own hurtful way.
But there is always a tear lurking somewhere behind my eyelid thinking of a disappointed child having lost the realistically insignificant pleasure of a cup full of crushed ice painted with some food coloring, possibly to be replaced by a sad imitation.
But it was one of the many things I saw, and still see, through the eyes of a child.
It can be a curse and a blessing.

And you brought them both to mind.
Very well done.
And, in its own way, very significant memories.

It’s the simplest of stories that brings back the most eloquent of memories, some joyful, some uncomfortable. But if the memories are that strong that a brief reminder is all it takes is enough to bring them back to life, that – my brother blogger – is the art of creative communication
It’s what I have in mind for my blog, noncturnaladmissions.net.
I hope you would consider following me as I get more going, and genuine wish I could be as inventive and insightful and as entertaining as you have been,